this year i went out on a limb and got Jeffrey Kacirk’s Forgotten English word-a-day calendar. today, it’s provided a lot of entertainment. see, it’s shawn’s birthday and he got a highly-amusing forgotten english phrase. and, since i love you all, i will share it with you.

tip the velvet: to tongue a woman.

Kissing Friday
On this Friday of Shrove Week, English schoolboys were once entitled to kiss girls in their call without fear of punishment or rejection, a custom that lasted until at least the 1940s. In Sileby, Leicestershire, this day was also known as Nippy Hug Day. There men could demand a kiss from the woman of their choice, but if their petition was denied, they had the right to louse, or pinch, the woman’s posterior– perhaps mimicking the pinching of lice. A related custom permitted a loused woman to be looked upon as the temporary wife of the pincher. In his poem “The Passionate Pilgrim,” Shakespeare putis kissing into perspective:
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

so, who would you kiss without fear of rejection or punishment?